Archive Valley

Archive Researchers, Rare footage

Thinking the Future of Archive Research with Fabrice Héron


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French Archive Researcher Fabrice Héron

For French iconographer and archive researcher Fabrice Héron, the job of archive researchers is “at the crossroads between [that of] historian and journalist.”

Getting his start in archival work during his studies at France’s Institut National Audiovisuel (INA) and while working at the media library at France Televisions, Héron has since built a career spanning over twenty years researching hundreds of subjects for television, feature documentary and feature fiction films from Attentats: Le visage de la terreur for France 3 to Nabil Ayouch’s Razzia, as well as consulting with publishers, museums and galleries. One of his recent projects had him researching and clearing amateur and professional footage from the 2011 protests that sparked the ongoing Syrian civil war. My Favorite Fabric directed by Gaya Jiji and produced by Gloria Films, will be presented in the Official Selection for ‘Un Certain Regard’ at the 2018 Festival de Cannes.

We caught up with Fabrice to learn about his latest work and hear his thoughts on the future of archival research in the television and film industries in France and beyond. (more…)

Archive Researchers, The Right Footage

Rare Archives Bring Ferrari Film to Life


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“The Universal documentary feature ‘Ferrari: Race To Immortality‘ revolves around five Formula 1 drivers of the late 1950s (Eugenio Castellotti, the Marquis Alfonso de Portago, Luigi Musso, Peter Collins and Mike Hawthorn) who all, extraordinarily, died tragically within just twenty-two months of each other,” archive researcher Richard Wiseman says. “Four of the five died at the steering-wheel of a Ferrari, whilst the fifth was killed on the public road, having just won a World Championship for the Scuderia. Individually and collectively, their life-stories are overwhelmingly unknown to 21st century audiences, and one of the reasons for this is that very little footage of them on film was thought to exist.”  (more…)

The Right Footage

A “Long Strange Trip” with Archival Producers Annie Salsich & Jim McDonnell


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Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia recording an early album in 1966. Photo courtesy of Roberto Rabanne.

The summer of 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of “The Summer of Love,” when over 100,000 people, largely consisting of post-beat-generation youth who came to be known as “hippies,” converged on San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury Neighborhood. The summer came to be defined by experimental rhetoric against the government, experimental drugs consumed by fans and musicians alike, and experimental music, performed at festivals like the now-legendary Monterey Pop Festival by groups like The Who, The Grateful Dead, The Animals, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix. The 50th Anniversary of the Summer of Love also coincides with the Anniversary of the Grateful Dead’s exponential rise to fame, as masterfully portrayed in Amir Bar-Lev’s six-part documentary on the band, “Long Strange Trip,” executive produced by Martin Scorsese and released in January 2017.  (more…)

Archive Valley

“Josephine Baker: An American in Paris” wins Archive Valley Prize at #SSD17


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As this year’s edition of Sunny Side of the Doc came to a close, Archive Valley had the pleasure of presenting an award to one of the historical documentary projects pitched during the History Pitch Session.

The quality of the projects extremely high across the board, so we faced an extremely difficult choice. However, one project stuck out as we felt that not only did it approach its subject from a new angle, but the team is also undertaking extensive archive research that we felt was a great match to our community and the passion for archives we all share.  (more…)